Friday, March 12, 2010

Knowing God - Exodus 10:13

(from Pastor)

the Lord caused a strong wind to blow from the east.

It blew across the land all that day and night,

and when morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts

Exodus 10:13

In the beginning, God blew a breath of life into a handful of dust and created life. In this passage, however, God also blows a very different kind of result. Was this a breath of judgment? Or was this a breath of life?

It depends on where you stand to determine whether this was a breath of judgment or a breath of life. If we stand on the side of bondage, evil, and oppression, the presence of God seems destructive. However, if we stand on God's side -- and take a longer term perspective -- even a plague of locusts can be seen as a path to life.

When hard happenings blow through your life, do you tend to stand on the side that sees life or do you tend to stand on the side that sees injustice, trials, and destruction.

In Christ's Love,

a guy who sometimes needs to play Red Rover

and go over to the other side

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Locusts. I never fully understood them until I lived in Montana and one smacked me in the face when I was driving with my windows down. Thankfully I was wearing sunglasses. I also remember reading Little House on the Prairie and the locusts would come. A true fear of all farmers. The one that hit me on the face left a bruise. He was about 3 inches long, brown with a green tinge and very rough/prickly. And when you get many of them together, they are loud!!!

God sent plagues of locusts - more than once. Locusts eat everything in sight. On one hand, a person is losing everything. And like pastor said, it is the side of bondage, evil, destruction. On the other hand, it is creating a clean slate. Yes, it is not easy to watch monster bugs chow down your livelyhood, but you are left with a clean slate and a means to begin fresh.

Where am I - honestly, I think I am watching locusts eat what I know and seeing what lies beneath and trying to trust God to take care of everything.